A continuous effort within an undergraduate university setting is to improve students' learning outcomes and thus improve students' attitudes about a particular field of study. This is undoubtedly relevant within a chemistry laboratory. This paper reports the results of an effort to introduce a problem-based learning strategy into the analytical…

The integration of research and education is an essential component of our university's teaching philosophy. Recently, we made a curricular revision to facilitate such an approach in the General Chemistry Laboratory, to teach students that investigative approaches are at the core of sciences. The curriculum revision included new interdisciplinary…

Describes visual experiments that illustrate some basic concepts in chemistry and their principles. (KHR)

Describes a literature-based approach that was used successfully at the University of Cincinnati in a one-quarter advanced undergraduate inorganic chemistry laboratory course. (KHR)

The purpose of this study was to compare in greater depth the qualitative differences between what previous researchers have called a deep versus surface approach to learning science. Six grade 8 students judged as typical using a deep or surface approach were videotaped or audiotaped during class group laboratory activities in a chemistry unit.…

This laboratory manual introduces the idea of Green Chemistry, which is the design of chemical products and processes that reduce or eliminate the use and generation of hazardous substances. Instructional samples are included to help teachers integrate green chemistry into the college chemistry curriculum. Each laboratory includes: (1) a…

Advocates the use of discovery or guided inquiry experiments for developing critical thinking in problem solving. Provides a stepwise method for creating inquiry experiments and provides an example by comparing the two methods for a freezing point experiment. (JM)

Reports on a study designed to determine the relative effectiveness of different instructional approaches on chemistry laboratory achievement. Investigated differences in achievement in spectrophotometry among college freshmen who received either traditional, learning cycle, or computer simulation instruction. Results indicated that students…